This is where it gets interesting. There’s an unspoken rule between the press and staged press events: cameras will park in a range to show whatever size crowd has shown up. Have an empty arena but the front 50 seats are full? Framed to row 50. Now you have someone who didn’t even wait to be inaugurated to declare war on the press. They can get back at him with live footage of the empty seats or by covering the demonstrations (which they never do).
And I’m pretty sure this will be the first inauguration speech to be fact-checked live. Guarantee he’ll try to gut NPR funding for revenge. (In fairness: NPR live fact-checked Obama’s farewell address).
Trump’s team has indicated it will be a short speech.
On that note, RIP Longest Inaugural Speech-giver and Shortest Lived President William Henry Harrison, who spoke for 1 hour and 45 minutes in a snowstorm and succumbed to pneumonia a month later.
